Someone just sent me this description of an extraordinarily funny incident
at this concert - it appeared in a UK newspaper.

   First-night couple drop a clanger

   AS ONE of the world's leading conductors, Pierre Boulez might have
   expected better appreciation from an eager first-night audience in
   the Barbican, London, on Thursday night.

   The artistic director of the ambitious Boulez 2000 tour was conducting
   Mahler's Sixth Symphony in A Minor when a couple in the front row
   started to wave their arms around in wild consternation.

   The source of their angst was clanging sounds coming from backstage.
   The man leapt to his feet and tried to close the side door, only to
   find that it had been pinioned open.  He returned to his seat defeated,
   but the couple grew increasingly restless as the noises continued.
   Finally, his friend walked over to the door and yelled through it
   "For God's sake, will you stop that infernal racket? You can hear
   it in the hall."

   The audience sat stunned as did the percussionists backstage whose
   job it was to ring the cowbells called for in the symphony's first
   and second movements.

John G. Deacon
Home page: www.ctv.es/USERS/j.deacon